USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Clinton > History of the origin of the town of Clinton, Massachusetts, 1653-1865 > Part 10
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58
III
THE GOULDS.
Josiah Flagg, for three hundred dollars. In 1804, Flagg sold to John Lowe.
A noteworthy family the Goulds must have been, for the father, notwithstanding his poverty, retained all his old courtliness of manner. In the records of Trinity Lodge of Free Masons, we find that he received assistance on account of his poverty as follows : "Voted: Br Stewards be directed to furnish & deliver to Br Gould I bottle Wine, ditto Spirits, 1/2 doz lemons, 2 lbs sugar " etc. Again, it was voted : "To raise Br Benjamin Gould to the Sublime degree of Master Mason free of any expense, he being a worthy member and under low circumstances." The mother, from whom the children seemed to have derived their scholarly tastes, is described as wisely directing her household affairs, taking part in an interesting conversation and being engaged upon literary work at the same instant.
Benjamin A. Gould, born in 1787, and Hannah Flagg Gould, born in 1789, spent most of their childhood in this cellar home. Here they must have received from their mother the rudiments of the education which made the one the Harvard graduate in 1814, the famous principal of the Boston Latin School, the learned editor of Latin classics and the wealthy East Indian merchant, and made the other the popular poet, whose verses were known and loved throughout the land. One of of her sweetest poems dwells thus on Rigby Brook :
The pleasant little meadow brook That runneth bright and free, With what a kind of spirit look lt smileth up to me.
With sunny sprinkles from the skies Its countless ripples shine Like thousand living starry eyes All speaking into mine.
For I was once a child beside A brook as clear and bright,
'Ere life's first meadow violets died Or waned its morning light.
II2
CLOSING YEARS OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
On the great anniversary of the foundation of Lancaster, in 1853, Benjamin A. Gould said : " On returning to the place of our birth ( Lancaster) and our childhood (the site of the cellar house) after forty years, how changed was the scene. The alders had been cut from beside the brook where form- erly sported the speckled trout ; and the stream itself had been degraded into a straight and narrow ditch. The sur- rounding wood had disappeared. The old buildings were gone, and where our house stood, a village had grown up. But one thing remained the same ; and that is, our father's well. It was a shaft sunk deeply into the earth more than half a century ago, terminating in a living spring of ice cold water, which heeds not the drouth, nor the freshets above. This was stoned up with slate stones laid flat wise, having their edges smoothly cut in a circular form, presenting from above a beautiful hollow cylinder." He quoted from a poem of his sister's:
"Though all be changed around it, And though so changed are we, Just where our father found it That pure well spring will be. Just as he smoothly stoned it, A close, round shadowy cell,
Whoever since has owned it, It is our father's well.
And since that moment, never Has that cool deep been dry ; Its fount is living ever While man and seasons die."
After living here and elsewhere in Lancaster for many years, the Gould family moved to Newburyport. Here Capt. Gould spent his old age, rejoicing in the success of his children, and tenderly cared for by his poet daughter, who thus sings of the closing years :
"God's blessing on his reverend head ! It now the crown of glory wears
And fourscore years and ten have given,
II3
THE SAWYERS.
As near the tomb they bear him down. An earnest lustre. Opening heaven Seems pouring on that silvery crown."
Moses Sawyer, during the earlier part of his life, is to be thought of as the younger member of a family of which Aaron Sawyer, his older brother, the owner of Sawyer's Mills, was the recognized head. But he was a thrifty man and the financial troubles following the Revolution, which brought mortgages and forced sales to others, apparently furnished him with his opportunity. He was as ready to buy as others were to sell, and so taking advantage of their needs he paid his cheap money for their valuable land. He added acre to acre until his farm extended from the Nashua on the east to a line connecting the western ends of Sandy and Mossy Ponds, and from the southern limits of Clinton as it stands to-day, to the Lancaster Mills dam and the foot of Burditt Hill. We have seen, too, how he bought of Jabez Prescott a large tract of land between South Meadow Brook and the river, and he had another large tract in Princeton. He must have owned, first and last, considerably over a square mile of land, and, when he died in 1805, he left over five hundred acres to be divided among his heirs. Thus, next to John Prescott, the pioneer, he was the greatest land owner who ever lived within present Clinton limits.
His executive ability was recognized by his fellow citi- zens, whom he served for several years as selectman. He was often made moderator of their town meetings. He was prominent in church affairs. His appreciation of liberal studies is shown in the fact that he gave his son Artemas a college education. This son graduated at Harvard in 1798, and was, as far as known, the first man, born within the pres- ent limits of Clinton, to receive a college degree. This Arte- mas Sawyer studied law and went to Marietta, Ohio, where he was killed by being thrown from a horse.
The story of the life of Moses Sawyer, Jr., the eldest son, belongs to the history of Lancaster, as he spent little of his
9
II4
CLOSING YEARS OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
manhood in this section of the town. In 1792, he married Elizabeth Divoll. His father built for the young couple the southern end of the house now known as the Sawyer-Burdett house, a short distance from the old homestead. The son also received a portion of his father's farm. It was here, May 7, 1793, that the eldest child, Sally, was born, whose life of over a century was a connecting link between the present and the far distant past. The character of the family to which she belongs is shown in the following ex- tract from an article on the approach of her hundredth birth- day:
"Though of a quiet and retiring disposition, yet she is of that sturdy New England type of womanhood of the old school. She possesses a deep religious character of the con- servative orthodox type, and on the Sabbath, when she sits at her window and observes her neighbors going up to the house of worship, it gives her unfeigned pleasure. However, she deplored the fact that church-going is not now so gen- eral as in the "olden time," when it was the exception, rather than the rule, to be absent from the sanctuary." Moses Sawyer, Jr., sold out his farm to Ezekiel Rice and moved to South Lancaster, where he remained, an influential citizen, until his death in 1831.
Peter Sawyer, at the death of his father, received half the old dwelling-house, but, in 1813, he built upon the main por- tion of his inherited farm in the intervale through which Mine Swamp Brook flows, just before it joins the river. Here, it is doubtfully claimed, he had a brick kiln and made bricks for Poignand & Plant when they were building the cotton mill on the Prescott Mills' water privilege. His only way of reaching his house was by a private cart-path run- ning where the road to the cast of Sandy Pond is now located. He still kept up most neighborly relations with the folks on Burditt Hill. He had two daughters and five sons whose births are recorded. Of these, Peter, born No- vember 18, 1811, spent his long and useful manhood as a
115
THE SAWYERS.
citizen of Clintonville and Clinton. Peter Sawyer, his father, died in 1831.
Ezra, who remained a bachelor, lived with his mother in the old homestead. She was familiarly known as Grandma Betsy Sawyer, and lived, a remarkably bright old woman, to the great age of ninety-four. In 1814, when the activity of the British navy excited fear all along the coast, a company of artillery, and one of infantry, went from Lancaster to take part, if necessary, in the defense of Boston. The company of infantry was commanded by Capt. Ezra Sawyer. This company probably included some from this district beside the captain, but, as the rolls have been lost, their names will never be known. Their term of service lasted only a week. This Ezra Sawyer was a school teacher during the winters and, as far as he was able, worked the rest of the year upon the farm.
An accident, which happened in the spring of 1815, weak- cned his health and shortened his life. He, with Samuel Newton, a young man of twenty-seven, and Daniel Felton, who was twenty-three years of age, started out on the even- ing of April 18th, to spear "suckers" in Sandy Pond. As they left the house, one of the women folks asked when they would return, and Newton jokingly answered: "When we have drowned Capt. Sawyer." They launched their boat, which was a new one, and, as the darkness gathered, lighted their torches. For a while, they had good sport, but after an hour or so, when they were some rods from the northwest corner of the pond where the water is more than thirty feet in depth, the boat was upset. Of course, the lights were put out, and the oars were lost in the darkness. Newton and Felton could swim, but Sawyer could not. They helped him to keep above water as they righted the boat, and then he climbed into it. Then they attempted to push the boat to the shore, but one of them sank, and the other, thoroughly chilled and exhausted, said that he must swim in and bring help. He attempted to do this, but he was too far gone, and
116
CLOSING YEARS OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
soon Sawyer listened in vain for the strokes of the swimmer, but heard instead the gurgling of his drowning comrade. He must now paddle the boat to the shore with his hands. He was able to accomplish this after a long time, but he was too chilled and exhausted to stand. About midnight, he made his way on his hands and knees to his house and told his story. Mrs. Newton, frantic with fear and grief, ran to the neighboring house of Nathan Burdett and roused him to go and look for her husband. He, getting what help he could, hurried to the pond, hoping to find that Newton and Felton had reached the shore, and had been lost in the woods. But the search was in vain. It was not until they dragged the pond the following day that the bodies were found. Capt. Sawyer never got over the shock, although he lived on for ten years afterward.
Zebulon Rice of Boylston had a family of seventeen or eighteen children. Joseph, one of the youngest of these, was born August 6, 1769. He became a basket maker. Sep- tember 29, 1796, he married Betsy, the daughter of Moses Sawyer. They had three sons and three daughters. It is possible that they lived in Boylston for a few years, as they were both admitted to the church in Lancaster, by letter from the church there, April 13, 1800. A house at the present corner of South Main and Coachlace Streets was given to Betsy Sawyer as a dowry, by her father, Moses Sawyer. In a paper given before the Clinton Historical Society, Judge C. C. Stone said : " It is described as being a small three- roomed house, with small, diamond-shaped panes of glass in the windows, indicating that it was very old." Joseph Rice lived here for some years. Neither record or tradition has preserved any account of the building of this house. As the land is supposed to have belonged to the Prescotts until it came into the hands of the Sawyers, it was probably the work of one or the other of these families. The farm of Joseph Rice, acquired by his wife's inheritance and by pur-
117
THE RICE FAMILY.
chase, was about one hundred acres in area. It reached from the river at the now submerged intervale below Rattlesnake Ledge, to Mossy Pond. It lay north of the estate bought by Ezekiel Rice of Moses Sawyer, Jr., for whom, as will be remembered, his father, Moses Sawyer, Sr., had built the Sawyer-Burdett house .*
In 1823, Joseph Rice built for himself and his son, Nathaniel, who married Anna, the daughter of Jacob Stone, a new house on the site of the old one. This remained in existence less than thirty years, being burned in the spring of 1851 or 1852. The story is told of Mrs. Rice that, as she went after wood one day, she found in the wood-house a huge rattlesnake. Seizing a stick of wood, she killed the snake. She afterwards "tried it out," and obtained about a pint of oil from it for medicinal use. Joseph Rice, Jr., was the second son. Abel Rice, the third son, was a noted mover of buildings.
There is considerable doubt as to when the saw-mill, near the present position of the Woolen Mill dam, was built. It is certain that Prescott, the pioneer, had a mill at this point. It is possible that there was a bloomery here in the middle of the eighteenth century. Some ascribe the building of a saw-mill in 1790, to Moses Sawyer, Sr., others to David Rice, a brother of Joseph, while others say that a mill was built by Peter Sawyer, either alone or in company with his brother-in-law, Joseph Rice. But papers which are still in existence, show clearly that a mill was built by Joseph Rice in 1801, with money furnished by his father-in-law, Moses Sawyer. It had a small reservoir and a fall of some ten feet. It was the custom to hold back the water to fill the reservoir, and thus great inconvenience was caused to the mill
* An old well was discovered in the early part of the present century near Rattlesnake Ledge, and not far from the Clinton Reservoir. It is said that there were some old apple trees beside it, and that bricks were turned up near by. If any house ever existed here, the story of it has been irrevocably lost.
118
CLOSING YEARS OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
below at the old Prescott privilege. This is one of the reas- ons why the owners of that privilege, Poignand & Plant, pur- chased the mill of Joseph Rice in 1814. The amount paid was five hundred and ninety-five dollars. The mill is said to have had a good business while it remained in existence. In 1802, Ezekiel Rice of Northboro bought of Moses Saw- yer, Jr., the house on North Main Street where Moses Sawyer, Jr., was then living. Ezekiel Rice moved hither, and lived here until 1814, when he sold his farm to Nathan Burdett.
About 1796, Jacob Stone bought of Ephraim Bennett, of Boylston, some three hundred acres of land lying along the old county road from Lancaster to Worcester, and extending from Sandy Pond to the Boylston line. This Jacob Stone was the son of Isaac and Keziah Stone. Isaac Stone was the son of Dea. Simon Stone, for many years the leading citizen of Harvard, who traced his ancestry to Dea. Simon Stone of Watertown, who came from England in the ship, Increase, in 1633. An inventory of the estate of Dea. Simon Stone, of Harvard, in 1746, shows how restricted the life of those days must have been compared with ours, since such articles as the following were deemed worthy' of mention in an estate of a leading citizen : "A loom and tackling ... a lanthorn; a looking-glass; ... wheels and cards; flax combs; sheep shears; ... a warming pan; skil- lets; a fire-slice; trammels; keelers; a razor; a pigeon net." Isaac was born in 1725, and had taken part in three cam- paigns of the French and Indian War, in two of which, he held the office of corporal. He spent most of his married life in that part of Lancaster which became Boylston in 1786. Jacob Stone was born Aug. 25, 1770. As he grew up, he learned the carpenter's trade, for which he and his sons were so distinguished in after years. Soon after the pur- chase of his farm, he began to build a house just a few rods north of Mine Swamp Brook, on the cast side of the road. This house was a large one for those days, being about
119
THE STONES.
thirty feet square and two stories in height. A kitchen ex- tended along the whole of one side, with a huge fireplace occupying a considerable part of one of the long sides of the room. There were doors at either end of the room, which led directly to the open air. The three rooms on the other side of the house opened from the kitchen, as did the stairways to the cellar and second story. North of the house, was a driveway, leading to the large barn situated well back of the house. At the north of the house, on the other side of the driveway, was a long, low building, a part of which was used as a carpenter's shop and a part as a carriage-house. A house built by Robert King, and now occupied by Joseph Leadbetter, is near the spot where the Stone house stood.
As soon as his new home was completed, Mr. Stone brought to it his bride, Martha Barnes, of Boylston, whom he married September 28, 1793. Their married life together was very brief, for she died in less than two years, and her infant twins died at the same time. May II, 1797, Jacob Stone married Anna Barnes, by whom he had five sons and seven daughters. The five sons were : Joseph, James, Jacob, Abel and Oliver. All became carpenters, and the four daughters who married, had carpenters for their husbands. One of the other daughters died in childhood, and two others were never married. In addition to his own large family, Mr. Stone generally had several apprentices living at his house, and his father, Isaac Stone, spent his last years with him, dying September 14, 1816, at the venerable age of ninety- three.
For over a quarter of a century, Jacob Stone was the most noted builder in all the region round, having at times a score of men and boys in his working force, and many of the most important contracts fell into his hands. Among these, was one for the woodwork of the Brick Church in Lan- caster, which was built in 1816, and some of the arched bridges of the town were constructed by him. He, and his
120
CLOSING YEARS OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
sons after him, were especially noted for the framing and raising of houses, work that was very different in those days from what it is at present. The timber used was much heavier, and the tools much more simple. As it would have been difficult for an ordinary force of carpenters to raise a large house alone, it was customary to invite all the men in the neighborhood to a raising. The dozen or so men who were thus called together fell to working with might and main until at last the ridge-pole was laid, and then the liquor was passed around, and there was a grand merry-making to celebrate the occasion. The boys, who had been "hanging around," and occasionally assisting by tossing pins to the men upon the frame, or by running errands, esteemed them- selves happy if they were allowed to clean out the rum- soaked sugar from the bottom of the glasses.
April 12, 1818, Mrs. Stone died, and on April 14 of the following year, Mr. Stone married Isabella Bennett. She had no children of her own, but the younger portion of the family were brought up by her. The children went to school in Boylston, as it would have been two miles to the nearest of the Lancaster schools. As their nearest neigh- bors were a mile away by the road, the family, and those who lived with them, contsituted a little community by themselves. In the latter part of his life, Mr. Stone met with business reverses, and in the hard times in the latter half of the thirties, had to give up his house where he had lived for more than forty years, where plans had been matured for the many buildings he had constructed, where his children had been born and reared, and which had been endeared to him and his family by scenes of joy and suffer- ing. He moved to the Fitch place, in Sterling, where he lived until July 8, 1847. Joseph, his eldest son, who never married, was living with him and caring for him when he died. The house ncar Mine Swamp Brook was burned soon after Mr. Stone moved away. It was not occupied after Mr. Stone left it.
I21
MINE SWAMP REGION.
We shall have occasion in later history to note the work of James and Oliver Stone and their descendants ; and also that of Nathaniel Rice, the husband of Anna Stone, and Levi Greene, the husband of Achsah Stone, and their descendants.
There was a cart-path, leading from the road by Mr. Stone's, and running along in the valley of Mine Swamp Brook to the point where it flows into the river by the home- stead of Peter Sawyer. On the brook about half way between the houses of Mr. Stone and Mr. Sawyer, tradition says there was a little saw-mill in early times, and credits the building of it to Moses Sawyer. At the beginning of the present century, this region was owned by Jonathan Samp- son of Boylston, who bought the land, one hundred and forty acres in extent, of Thomas Gates in 1793. No build- ings are mentioned in the deed. Sampson sold it in 1801 to John Severy of Boylston, who immediately transferred it to his father, John Severy of Sutton. A small, one-story house was built by the stream. According to tradition, there was another little house near by. It may be that bricks were already made in small quantities of the fine clay found here, and it may be that Severy varied his work by doing some tanning of leather.
This region was regarded as an unlucky one during the first half of the century, and the superstitious believed that it was haunted. In this brook, two young ladies, Charlotte and Mary Sawyer, were drowned near the mill soon after it was built. They had been visiting in Boylston, and a violent storm had arisen which had swollen the brook to a torrent. They felt obliged to return to their home, notwithstanding the danger. As they were attempting to ford the stream, both on one horse, the horse slipped and both fell off and were drowned. Their bodies were recovered and carried to Moses Sawyer's and buried in his family lot, which is now submerged by Coachlace Pond. A while after, a stranger
I22
CLOSING YEARS OF EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
was discovered on the roadside by Mr. Sawyer's house on Burditt Hill. As he appeared to be suffering from small- pox, he was carried to one of the houses at Mine Swamp Brook and died there and was buried near by. Certain facts and events connected with the Severy family added to the superstitious feeling in regard to the place. Children dreaded to go near it after nightfall, and even the imag- ination of men of sound common sense was so worked upon that they honestly believed and declared that, as they sat in the house, they had heard the approaching hoof-beats of a galloping horse which seemed to stop at the door, but when the door was opened, no horse or rider could be seen, and there was no sound save the wind which moaned mysteriously about the building.
Leaving legends, and coming to the Lancaster records, we find that John Severy, Jr., who evidently occupied the house, married Phobe Kendall, December 9, 1779, and that he died at the house of Winsor Barnard, his son-in-law, who lived at that time in the Peter Sawyer place, where the brook joins the Nashua, September 10, 1834, at the age of eighty- two. Winsor Barnard had married Phoebe Severy November 28, 1813. It is stated that John Severy had two sons and four daughters, and that he was a revolutionary pensioner. In 1818, the place passed from his hands into those of Levi Howe, who was born in Lancaster, in 1764. He had a daughter, Dolly Stratton Howe, born August 7, 1821. She was his only child. He lived here for some years. He sold part of his farm to Capt. Artemas Harrington, who married Martha Stone. Mr. Harrington did not buy the house, but built one east of the mill over the Boylston line. It is said that he started the first brick kiln, digging his clay from the place which was afterwards filled by Cunningham's Mill Pond. He died shortly after this purchase, and his wife sold the brickyard and estate to Ezra and Luke Sawyer, in 1844. The Howe house and that built by Harrington have both been destroyed.
123
SOUTH MEADOW ROAD.
On the South Meadow Road on a farm afterwards owned by John Sheehan lived James Elder. He came from Wor- cester, and married Sarah Gates of Lancaster, January 16, 1770. He was familiarly known as the "General." He organized a company of drunkards, whom he always marshalled on muster days. James Pitt says in his " Rem- iniscences": "The qualifications for enlistment were, to be drunk on three public days, and each man to provide himself with the necessary uniform and equipments, which were as follows: The uniform was to be a red face ; the equipments, a junk-bottle, stake and withe. The bottle was a flask, in which to carry the powder ( they used liquid powder instead of kerneled), the stake was to be driven into the ground, when the soldiers were so drunk they could not stand alone; and the withe was to fasten them to the stake." Whenever Elder heard that any one was drinking heavily, he always called on him and claimed him as a recruit. When a leading man in the town fell into his fireplace under the influence of liquor, General Elder ordered his adjutant to call out the company. When asked what he was going to do, he replied : "I am going to storm hell; the soldiers are beginning to eat fire already."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.